Abraham Joshua Heschel School

Welcome to The Abraham Joshua Heschel School. When you walk through our doors, you enter a school where Jewish pluralism and academic excellence thrive within a community of students and faculty dedicated to the values that characterized Rabbi Heschel’s life: intellectual exploration, respect, integrity, love of the Jewish people and tradition, and a commitment to social justice.

From Nursery through Twelfth Grade, these values drive our commitment to our students’ intellectual, emotional, and spiritual development. Across our curriculum, drawing on traditional texts and new technologies, we foster spirited engagement, critical thinking, and a love of learning. From our Early Childhood division through our High School, Heschel teachers strive to nurture and support the diverse talents of each student.

All of us at The Heschel School aspire to cultivate the authentic Jewish lives of our students. We teach them to understand, analyze and appreciate a range of Jewish practices and beliefs. We instill a commitment to hesed (deeds of kindness) and tzedek (the pursuit of justice) as expressions of our religious imperative to unite people through shared humanity and mutual respect. Heschel students develop meaningful and lasting relationships with the language, culture, history, and people of the State of Israel so that a connection to Israel figures centrally in their Jewish identities. And we encourage our students to embody Jewish traditions in the way they live their lives as citizens of a diverse world community.

The Abraham Joshua Heschel School is an independent Jewish day school named in memory of one of the great Jewish leaders, teachers, and activists of the 20th century and dedicated to the values that characterized Rabbi Heschel’s life: intellectual exploration, integrity, love of the Jewish people and tradition, and a commitment to social justice. The Heschel School is a pluralistic, egalitarian community that includes families from a wide range of Jewish backgrounds, practices and beliefs. Boys and girls, men and women participate equally in all aspects of the school’s religious, intellectual, and communal life.

The Heschel School regards the texts of the Jewish tradition and the history of the Jewish people as fundamental resources for developing ideas, beliefs, behaviors and values to shape and inspire the lives of individuals in our time. In an open and engaging academic setting, the school’s curriculum interweaves the best of both Jewish and general knowledge and culture throughout the school day.

The school’s approach to education is governed by profound respect for students. It nurtures their curiosity, cultivates their imagination, encourages creative expression, values their initiative and engenders critical thinking skills. The school is committed to development of the whole child and supports each student’s intellectual, emotional, social, physical and spiritual growth. In addition, the school seeks to create an environment that encourages the professional and personal growth of teachers, administrators, and staff. Among the central goals of the Abraham Joshua Heschel School are the following:

• Fostering a lifelong love of learning. The school seeks to develop the understanding that the discovery of personal meaning and the growth of individual identity can emerge from the rigors of study.
• Creating an environment of intellectual challenge and academic excellence.
• Creating an ethical learning community that inspires its students to become responsible, active, compassionate citizens and leaders in the Jewish and world communities.
• Cultivating the spiritual lives of its students and the nurturing of their commitment to Jewish values. The school helps students learn about and respect a range of Jewish practices and encourages them to embody these traditions in the way they live their lives; students learn the skills that enable them to participate fully in Jewish life.
• Building of bridges between different sectors of the Jewish community, and between the Jewish community and other communities, as expressions of our religious imperative to unite human beings through justice, shared humanity and mutual respect.
• Fostering in its students a deep commitment to and a lifelong relationship with the State of Israel and its language, culture and people, in recognition of the centrality of the State of Israel to Jewish identity and to the Jewish people.

The vibrant academic life at Heschel encompasses all aspects of our general and Judaic studies programming, as well as college counseling, our Holocaust Archives Center, and opportunities for performing acts of hesed.

The educational philosophy of The Abraham Joshua Heschel School is grounded in a strong curriculum which requires each student to seek personal meaning in that curriculum. Our concern for the whole child is reflected in attention to and the balance between intellectual and emotional growth. We emphasize values and moral education. We view concern for the child’s emotional development, the quality of relationships among students and staff, and reaching out to others as critical components of such an education.

Our ultimate goal is to develop individuals who are seekers and learners, to educate people who integrate Jewish values in all areas of their lives, and who feel a deep responsibility to the larger world within which they live.